Aplochelius panchax (Blue Panchax)

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Aplochelius panchax - (Blue Panchax)

I received this 'quartet' of Aplochelius panchax from Madan Subramaniam, a good friend of Kwek Leong, on October 29th 2003 (eve of Aquarama Exhibition and Conference 2003).

These wild-caught aplochelius from India, were acclimatized for about a week in Madan's holding tanks prior to being packed in little plastic bags.

Having not being fed for about 4 days, the fishes produced very little waste (fouled transport water is the major cause of shipping casualties).

Click here to go straight to spawning updates!
Wanna see the embryo? It's here!
"I wanna break free" ... and finally, free swimming!

By the shape of their mouths, panchax species are surface dwellers but will also feed at various level of the tank, if the water column is not too deep.

Aplochelius panchax, male
The male is larger and the scales reflects a blueish sheen. A black and yellow band border the edges of the dorsal and caudal fin. Anal fin sports a faint orange color.

Aplochelius panchax, female
The color bands at the caudal fin is absent. Dorsal fin has a lighter hint of black and yellow markings.
Blueish sheen is also somewhat subtle.

Aplochelius panchax pair looking contented after a hearty breakfast of tubifex and frozen bloodworms.
I hope to condition them well and get these plant spawners to breed.

Update - November 9th 2003
It was gonna be another hectic Saturday and feeding was brief... just dumped a lump of tubifex into the floating worm feeder.

Noticed the pair shimering amongst the java moss and examining the floating mop. No time... gotta leave or I'll be late for work.

Dinner out with family. Got home late but decided to check out my BIT Lagos's mop... there's eggs in there!
Checked out AUS Gold's mop... there's eggs too! Finally, both BIT Ijebu Ode and AUS Chocolate's mops are also blessed with eggs!

Brought out lamps, tweezers and stuffs and got down to pick 'em eggs, one mop at a time. Labelled tub, put away, washed hands again and on to next mop.

Took a smoke break after putting away the last of the Aphy's tubs and looked into the Alpo's tank... huh? where's the male?? Then I realized the pair quivering away inside the mop (no prizes for guessing what they're doing but if I were the male, I'd be quivering too! LOL!! )

Decided to leave 'em alone and settled down with a nice cool malt. Put on some light jazzy number from Stacey Kent and got lost in the music.

Back to reality... and I was getting impatient. Decided to pull the Alpo's mop and WOW!!... those freaking eggs are HUGE!!

I'll let the pics tell the rest of the story... I'm stumped! Enjoy the pics! ( Sleepless in Singapore!)

These fellas were not fussy where they drop their eggs... it's everywhere!

Huge clear eggs! This is the only time I didn't have to squint my eyes to see 'em... you can't miss!

egg size

At almost 2mm, how I wished that all killie eggs were this big!

I packed some X'mas moss that were 'stowaway-passed', into a plastic tub. Added PMBB/Peat Ball concoction to it and started picking at the eggs. They were very easy to find and I lost count at 50 eggs...

They 'did it' everywhere....
Not wanting to put all my eggs in one 'basket', I decided to water incubate the rest in a small plastic tank.
Besides, I was getting real tired...

Will the eggs eye up? How long does it take? Will the frys make it?
Heck! how would I know... but don't touch that dial! Stay tuned and I'll be right back!

Update - November 11th 2003... worth waiting... right?
embryo

I didn't want to disturb the eggs unnecessary, so I just grabbed a frond of java moss that so happened to have eggs attached to it. All three eggs are in various stages of development.

There was a couple of fungicized eggs and removed immediately, lest it affects the rest too. Since I had pretty decent results with shrimps handling fungus, I added one Cherry Shrimp to the incubation tub.

Update - November 12th 2003

Under a 2x loupe, many of the eggs are eyeing up and showing good spinal development.
Not bad... considering that these were collected on 9th November, and that's only 4 days!
I would hazard a guess that most will hatch in two days' time.

Update - November 15th 2003 Final embryol development...

An egg cluster of three

Just before the final countdown, I could see them wriggling.
If they had eyelids, I could have sworn I saw them wink!

Then a brief struggle with their chorion* before the newborn can claim freedom and earn their wings... urm... I meant fins!

Incubation time, from egg collection to free swimming, is a short seven-day wait ( 9th-15th Nov ) at 25 degree Celsius or 77degree Fahrenheit.

* The outer membrane enclosing the embryo in fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

"I'm free, I'm free..."

I had expected a longer time taken for the egg sac to be assimilated, ie. to consume and incorporate (nutrients) into the body after digestion.

The fry reaches free swimming stage surprisingly fast, perhaps to avoid being ended up as someone else's snacks!

Compared to non-annual eggs of say, Aphyosemion australe, it would take between 12 to 17 days before the fry emerge from their chorion.

Update - November 19th 2003

Like every killie keeper, I was running out of tanks and the space for them.

Instead of more tanks, I found this stackable plastic trays which were a very nice size, that could fit beneath my fish rack.

At about the same time, I accidentally discovered new frys from another spawning tank, that housed a trio of wild-caught Blue badis badis.

Since the closest companions for the badis frys* was the Aplo Panchax, and there's no chance of hybridizing, I decided to let them grow out together.

* in round plastic take-away container.

The stackable plastic trays are about 6 inches high, fairly rigid and looks pretty strong.

When stacked, the trays are stable and at S$2.oo each, the price is hard to beat!

Furthermore, a stacked 2-layer tray fits very nicely beneath my killie rack, giving me more storage for more frys!!

Quick labels out of masking tape, with names and details of the frys, minimize possible mix-ups.

Page Created October 30th 2003
Updated November 23rd 2003
Photos by Ronnie Lee